Transistors go 3D as Intel re-invents the microchip

Intel has announced the commercial introduction of a game-changing new …

Into the third dimension

Tri-gate transistor

Intel

In the three-dimensional tri-gate transistor above, there's a lot of gate surface area in contact with the semiconductor material, so there's a lot more of that blue inversion layer for current to flow through. This makes the difference between the transistor's "on" and "off" states much larger, which means that the transistor can switch between states much faster while still producing a clear string of ons and offs.

Or, if you're not so much interested in boosting the chip's frequency and would rather reduce its power consumption instead, you could take advantage of this new structure by applying less voltage to the gate. Sure, the blue inversion layer adjacent to the gate would be less conductive, but there's more of it available to carry electrons, so you can still let the same amount of current through when the switch is on.

The middle part that sticks up there is called a "fin." If Intel wants to stretch the gate and inversion layer sizes out even further, its approach lets it add multiple fins under a single gate, for boosts in performance and/or power at the expense of transistor density.

The results

Ultimately, the advantage of stretching the gate out into the third dimension are that you can much more easily either boost the chip's frequency or reduce its power, or some mix of the two. This relationship is visually expressed in the graph below; for "gate delay" think "inverse of CPU clockspeed" and you'll get the gist of it.

Tri-gate transistor vs. Planar transistor

Intel

Intel claims that the 22nm tri-gate transistors switch between 18 and 37 percent faster than the 32nm planar ones (depending on the voltage level). Or, looked at from the voltage side, the new design can reduce active power by up to 50 percent.

These are some very significant jumps in performance and efficiency, and they'll go a long way toward making Intel's "x86 in smartphones at 22nm" dreams come true. Once again, Intel has proven that its semiconductor manufacturing prowess is without peer in the industry. Whatever you think of Atom vs. ARM, this is a major advance, and it puts Intel even further out ahead of the competition than it was earlier.

Intel's upcoming 22nm Ivy Bridge processor will use this new technology, as will a future version of the company's low-power Atom part. This approach should improve Atom's power efficiency quite drastically, I won't speculate as to whether this will finally push Atom down into ARM territory in terms of absolute power draw, but it sure will bring it much closer.